Jake Beckley was a solid hitter for Pittsburgh teams (National League and Player’s League) for a decade before he was traded to the New York Giants in 1896.  The First Baseman slumped in 1897 and after he was released, he signed with Cincinnati where his career was resurrected.

Named the Sporting News and Baseball Player Minor League Player of the Year, Jay Bruce was called up in 2008 where the Reds Outfielder was fifth in Rookie of the Year voting.  Bruce built on that and would become one of the top players for Cincinnati in the first half of the 2010s.

Regular visitors of Notinhalloffame.com know that we are slowly working on the top 50 of every major team in the NHL, NBA, NFL and MLB. Once that is done, we intend to look at how each team honor their past players and executive.  As such it is news to us that the Cincinnati Reds have announced that next year, they will be inducting their long-time broadcaster, Marty Brennaman, to their franchise Hall of Fame in 2020.

Brennaman is wrapping up his final season as a broadcaster for the Reds, this being his 46^thwith the organization.  For his work in Baseball, he was honored by the Baseball Hall of Fame with the Ford C. Frick Award in 2000.

Out of respect to Brennaman, he will be the sole inductee next year.

We here at Notinhalloffame.com would like to congratulate Marty Brennaman for earning this impending honor.

Again, did we ever say this would be fast?

We here at Notinhalloffame.com have completed our next all-time top 50, this time that of the Cincinnati Reds.

As for all of our top 50 players in baseball we look at the following:

1. 1. Sabremetric tallies while with that team, mostly WAR.

2. 2. Traditional metrics and how they finished in their respective league overall.

3. 3. Playoff accomplishment.

4. 4. Their overall impact on the team and other intangibles not reflected in a stat sheet.

Remember, this is ONLY based on what a player does on that particular team and not what he accomplished elsewhere and also note that we have placed an increased importance on the first two categories.

Saying all of that, as.

The complete list can be found here, but as always we announce our top five in our news. They are:

1. 1. Pete Rose

2. 2. Johnny Bench

3. 3. Frank Robinson

4. 4. Joe Morgan

5. 5. Barry Larkin

This is a solid top five with four Hall of Famers and one who should be.

So which team is up next?

We go back to the ice and look at the top 50 Dallas Stars of all time.

Look for that in a couple of months.

As always, we here at Notinhalloffame.com thank you for your support.

Reggie Sanders spent the first eight of his seventeen seasons with the Cincinnati Reds, and it can be easily stated that this was the best run of his career.

The first few years of James “Bug” Holliday’s baseball career were quite good.   Holliday would win the Home Run Title (with a decent tally of 19) in his debut year with the then named Red Stockings who were then in the American Association.  The switch to the National League was still successful for Holliday who would again win the Home Run Title (1892) and would have four (full) seasons where he was a .300 Hitter. 

Ken Raffensberger could be the unluckiest Pitcher in the history of baseball.  The forkball specialist never played for a winning team, (we aren’t counting his rookie year where he played one game) which included his last seven and half years in Cincinnati.  Raffensberger pitched with multiple deliveries but had incredible accuracy regardless of how the ball left his hand.  As a Red, he finished in the top five in BB/9 five times, including the two top finishes in 1950 & 1951.  He would also lead the National League in WHIP in ’51. 

Raffensberger's overall record in Cincinnati was 89-99 with a 3.64 ERA.

Tom Seaver was justifiably inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame with 98.8% of the vote.  He is equally warranted as our selection for the greatest New York Met of all-time.  Still, even though he spent five and a half seasons with Cincinnati after the “Midnight Massacre Trade” that decimated the Mets, do we ever think of “Tom Terrific” as a Red?

In the 1890’s, Billy Rhines would have two three year runs with the Cincinnati Reds (1890-92 & 1895-97).  In each stint, he would win an Earned Run Average Title and WHIP Title.  Basically, Rhines had one excellent season in each of his stints as a Red and he is easily one of the better hurlers the team has ever had.  Those two years are enough to rank him here.

Overall as a Red, Rhines had a record of 96-79 with a 3.28 ERA.

Perhaps a strange entry considering his relatively low tenure as a Cincinnati Red, Cy Seymour put together one of the finest and undervalued seasons in the early 1900’s.

The starting Rightfielder for six seasons (and two injury-plagued ones) Ival Goodman proved to be a key contributor to many good seasons that Cincinnati would have in the late ’30s and 1940. 

A three-time All-Star during his time in Cincinnati Bob Purkey was a rarity for a knuckleball pitcher as it was just another weapon in his vast arsenal.  Purkey would enjoy his greatest success in Cincinnati, as he was a 15 Game winner four times, including a 23 and 5 year in 1962.  That was by far the best season of his career, as he would finish atop the National League in bWAR for Pitchers and Win Probability Added and third in ERA.  He would also finish third in Cy Young voting.

With the Reds, Purkey had a 103-76 Record with an ERA of 3.49 and entered the Reds Hall of Fame.

Pete Donohue’s 20 Wins in 1926 were enough to win him that title, but he actually had two other seasons where he accumulated 21 Wins (1923 & 1925) as a Starting Pitcher with the Reds.  Donohue was an excellent control pitcher who would seven time finish in the top in BB/9, including a top finish in 1926.  He would also finish third in Earned Run Average twice.  He would also finish in top three in FIP four times.

With Cincinnati, Donohue posted a record of 127-110 with a 3.73 ERA, and was a Reds Hall of Fame selection in 1964.

Far more than a 20 Game winner in 1905, “Long” Bob Ewing was a master of the spitball (legal at the time) and had a three-year stint (1905-07) where he finished in the top five in bWAR for Pitchers.  Impressively, Ewing would also finish in the top ten in SO/BB six times and FIP six times.  As of this writing, Ewing is 27th all-time in FIP, and had a 108-113 Record for Cincinnati.

Ewing entered the Reds Hall of Fame in 2001.

With the exception of six Games at the end of his career with the California Angels, Gary Nolan was with Cincinnati for his entire career assisting them to consecutive World Series titles in the 70’s. 

Come on now, You didn’t think we were finished talking about the “Big Red Machine” from the mid 70’s did you?

Johnny Cueto may have had an up and down career during his time as a Cincinnati Red but when he was up he was an elite pitcher who would finish fourth in Cy Young voting in 2012 and was the runner-up in 2014.  That year, Cueto finished at the top in the NL in Innings Pitched, Strikeouts and H/9.  Cueto’s record with Cincinnati was 92 and 63 with 1,115 Strikeouts. 

For the standards of the 1880’s, “Long” John Reilly was a power hitter.  Three times he had over 10 Homers in a season (again, this was very good for this time period) two of which (1884 & 1888) were good enough to lead the league.  Reilly was also a two time Slugging Champion and historically speaking is the first player to hit for the cycle three times.  Reilly also had very good speed swiping 245 bases over his career.

Reilly was inducted into the Reds Hall of Fame in 2012.

The Cleveland Indians knew that Brandon Phillips had an abundance of skills but they gave up on ever seeing that executed at a Major League level.  He was thus traded across the state to Cincinnati, where much to the chagrin of the Tribe, he became the player that he was pegged to be.

Had this been based on the iconography of the Reds, Joe Nuxhall would be top five, but we base our rankings primarily on what is accomplished on the field, which was still pretty good.